Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working with Andrea Tomasini (@tumma72) from agile42 to develop an overview session of the 4C’s and Accelerated Learning. We are co-facilitating a session in advanced of the Atlanta Scrum Gathering to teach the other Certified Scrum Trainers and Certified Scrum Coaches the concepts in Training From the Back of the Room (TFBR).  I have really enjoyed working with Andrea since he is a very experienced consultant and quite knowledgable with TFBR.

One of the concepts from TFBR that I had overlooked, but was reminded again when working with Andrea, was the importance of Accelerated Learning (AL).  AL forms the foundation of TFBR since it creates the community space where the learners can connect with one another and activate the all-important peer-to-peer learning.  The basic tenants of AL are:

• Learning involves the body as well as the mind.
• Learning is fundamentally an act of creation, not consumption of information.
• Learning takes place on many levels at once in the human brain and is not a linear, one-thing-at-a-time brain activity.
• Collaboration increases learning; isolation and competition decreases it.
• Learning occurs through active doing, with time for reflection and feedback not passive listening.
• Positive emotions and mental imagery improve learning; the lack of both inhibits learning.

In the Resources section of this site, I have added a mark-up which describes AL and shows how Sharon Bowman has linked these concepts to the 4C’s from TFBR.  Please feel free to use this document if you need to provide an overview of the AL and the 4C’s.